Monday, July 09, 2007

Stage 2: First major pileup of the Tour

Since the colossal pileup of riders occurred in the last 3 km of the course, everyone in the entire peleton was awarded the same finish time today, and there were no stragglers. The standings for the Lanterne Rouge are the same as yesterday. Aleksandr Kuschynski, the Liquigas rider from Belarus, remains Lanterne Rouge.

Gert Steegmans, today's Belgian stage winner for Quickstep-Innergetic, finished the 2006 Tour de France in the third from last position, 137th place out of 139 finishers. Yet more evidence that position in the general classification of the Tour is no indication of the quality nor talent of the cyclist. They're all incredible athletes. You never know, we could see Kuschynski winning a stage some day, too.

There are truly incredible athletes and it is so very good to see the race, once again, underway where we can watch with awe and hope that the periferial issues that clog the news will fade away into obscurity through a lack of proven guilt.

Well, the ultimate last place on the final day of the tour is the overall Lanterne Rouge, but I keep track of all the dropouts and the final places in the General Classification along the way. Otherwise there wouldn't be much to blog about. :-)